


A Region Of Space

by respoftw



Category: Cube (1997 2002 2004), Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Action/Adventure, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-10
Updated: 2017-12-10
Packaged: 2019-02-13 00:54:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,956
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12972171
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/respoftw/pseuds/respoftw
Summary: A cube is a region of space formed by six identical square faces joined along their edges.It's also the region of space that John and his team are currently trapped in.





	A Region Of Space

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mific](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mific/gifts).



> Happy Secret Santa! 
> 
> This is a sort of fusion with the movie Cube (1997) aka my introduction to a certain David Hewlett. I will always have a HUGE soft spot for this film because of that.
> 
> Some dialogue (mostly math related) has been taken directly from the movie. I blame the movie for all math errors!

John Sheppard woke up with a pounding headache and the sure knowledge that something wasn’t right. That sense of knowing when a situation had become FUBAR was a skill that he had honed during his military career and one that he had perfected during his time in the Pegasus Galaxy.

Finding himself lying prone on a cold, hard surface wasn't the most auspicious of starts, as well as being one of his least favourite ways to wake up. He carefully pushed up into a seated position, feeling the bump on his head with wary fingers, and started to take stock of his situation. He'd been in better. Everything he remembered carrying before was gone. The only things he had been left with were his boots. His P-90 and the rest of his gear, including his radio, were gone. His uniform had been replaced with a rough, homespun jacket and trousers set that were as utilitarian as they were itchy. Even his underwear was different, the blue striped boxers and white vest he habitually wore on missions replaced with a plain white t-shirt and boxers. That in itself would have been off-putting enough - the knowledge that someone had stripped and then reclothed him - but it was the room he found himself in that really ramped up the sense of unease.

The room he was in was perfectly square, each of the four sides - as well as the ceiling and floor - made up of identical translucent panels which glowed an eerie green. There was what looked like a hatch door, operated by a lever, set dead centre in each of the six surfaces, giving John the impression that this room was just one part of a much larger complex.

Of course the worst thing about his situation - more so than the change of clothes or the strange room - was the fact that he was alone. The last he remembered, he hadn't been. Last he remembered, he and Teyla had been sitting on the hard-packed earth of yet another tribal tent trying to hash out the details of a trade agreement while Rodney and Ronon took a tour of what passed for a library in the little village that was the bustling metropolis of MXC-U83.

No matter how hard he tried, he couldn't for the life of him figure out how he had gotten from there to here. The people of MXC-U83 hadn’t seemed overly developed - certainly not developed enough to have built this place - but they had already been burned with that ruse once before. Living under the threat of the Wraith was a pretty good motivation for a society to become incredibly skilled at hiding their true nature. The Genii were proof enough of that. Still, he was pretty sure that he would have noticed a structure like this in the village. Which, of course, begged the question of whether he was even on the same planet anymore.

John groaned, only half from the still pounding headache, and pushed the mystery out of his mind for now. First things first, he had to find the rest of his team. He called out for them a few times to no avail, not that he expected a response. Writing that idea off, John approached one of the hatches at random and turned the lever until the entire door slid open and down. It revealed a crawl space that gave entry to an almost identical room on the other side. The only difference in the two rooms was that the eerie green glow from the walls was replaced with a blindingly brilliant white one.

John closed the hatch again and made quick work of opening the hatches on the three other walls as well as the one in the floor. Each hatch led to a differently coloured empty room; a second green one, then blue, white again and purple. Sighing, John tipped his head up to look at the hatch in the ceiling. Logic said that there would be another room behind it but he needed to check to be sure. He had to get all the variables; one of the many lessons he’d learned working with Rodney was the power of knowledge and the danger of assuming anything.

John climbed the wall that bordered onto the white room, using the handy ladder-like rungs that sectioned each perfectly square wall into nine further squares - the hatch door making up the middle section of each side. He used the rungs that ran along the ceiling as handholds and made his way to the centre square. Dangling there, he managed to manoeuvre the hatch open to find yet another square room. This one was red. And also empty.

Dropping back to the floor, John rolled his shoulders painfully - the exertion of climbing was too much for his stiff limbs - and decided that the first white room was as good a choice as any to move to. Opening the hatch again, he hoisted himself into the crawl space and noticed the numbers scratched on both sides of the joining where the two rooms connected.

It was obviously a numbering system but John had no idea what it meant. He filed the information away, committing the numbers of both cubes to memory before continuing into the white cube. He'd always had a facility for numbers; back when he was a kid his Mom had always found his ability to remember the telephone numbers of the society women she mingled with handy. Though it was the very least he could do with numbers, it had been one of the only things his family cared about. That and his ability to spot trends in financial information.

Choosing flying over his father’s company had been one of the easiest decisions he had ever made.

The hatch closed behind him as soon as his feet hit the ground of the white cube, the hissing noise of pressurized air making him jump. A cursory examination of the room showed it to be completely identical to the one he'd just been in. He eyed the five hatch options available and made a snap decision that a straight line was the best course of action. There had to be an end to this thing somewhere, right? If he kept going in a straight line he would eventually reach the edge and, hopefully, a way out. If he was lucky, he might even come across the rest of his team although part of him hoped that, wherever he was, whatever the hell this place was, his team were a million miles away from it.

Whatever the result, he had to keep moving.

* * *

Three rooms in and John had developed a particular hatred for the white rooms. There was something about the quality of light there that made his eyes ache and his head pound.

Even the low lighting of the ominous red rooms was preferable to the white.

He'd paused in room six (blue this time) when he heard something besides his own breathing for the first time since he’d woken up in this place. It wasn't the sound of someone else but a distant rumbling, almost like thunder, that he couldn't place. He couldn't even be sure if it was coming from inside the structure or out.

Another thing he didn't know. They were really stacking up today.

He found Rodney in room eight.

Rodney was lying, unmoving, on the bright white floor of the cube, the lever that controlled the floor hatch far too close to his head for John’s liking. As soon as his boots hit the ground, John rushed over, falling to his knees beside Rodney, hands shaking as he felt for a pulse.

His shoulders slumped in relief as he registered the strong, steady pumping of blood under Rodney’s too pale skin. A cautious examination of Rodney's head had John's fingers coming away bloody and he cursed loudly in the quiet room. The probing of the wound elicited a low moan from Rodney and John withdrew his hand, moving to pat Rodney's cheek gently, trying to wake him up.

“Come on, buddy,” he said quietly. “Time to wake up and complain about the accommodations.”

“Go ‘way,” Rodney mumbled, batting his hand at John.

John grinned shakily, a little bit stunned by how much lighter he felt at hearing Rodney speak. “Can't do that,” he said, shaking Rodney’s shoulder. “Come on, it's time for sleeping scientists to wake up and find us a way out of this thing.”

Rodney's eyes opened a crack, looking warily at John.

“What do you mean _this thing_?” he said. “Please tell me we're not in a jail cell again. What have I told you about flirting with the pretty aliens? But no, you have to Kirk your way around the Galaxy.”

John's grin had slipped as Rodney's first words came out slurred and strangely disconnected sounding but by the time he was throwing his usual accusations about John’s ‘Kirking’ ways, his voice was normal. Wonderfully, reassuringly normal.

John shifted so he was seated on the floor next to Rodney rather than kneeling over him. “Why don't you open your eyes and see for yourself?” he said, kicking at Rodney's left boot. It looked as though his boots were the only thing Rodney had been left with too - the rest of his clothing an exact match for John’s. Strangely, the thought of someone stripping and redressing Rodney was more abhorrent to him than the thought of someone doing it to him and John had to swallow against the surge of anger that rushed through him.

Rodney opened his eyes fully and promptly closed them again, hissing in pain. “Jesus, that's bright,” he complained. “And what the hell? Did I get hit by a truck? I feel like I got hit by a truck. I didn't think the Pegasus Galaxy had trucks.”

John grimaced in sympathy. White rooms were the worst - even if they had gone up in his estimation purely due to the fact that he had found Rodney in one. He stood up and held his hand out for Rodney. “There's a wall,” he said. “Four of them actually. Let's get you sitting up against one.”

Rodney grabbed John's hand without hesitation and barely even opened his eyes, trusting John to get him there. Once Rodney was propped up against the wall that held the hatch John had entered through, John sat next to him, close enough that their shoulders touched.

“So,” Rodney said, eyes still closed, “about that truck?”

John snorted. “Your guess is as good as mine. I woke up here maybe ten, fifteen minutes ago. No clue how we got here.” Rodney's hand was prodding gingerly at his head and John jerked it down, rolling his eyes. “No touching,” he ordered. “You'll just make it bleed more.”

Rodney's eyes opened wide, piercing light be damned. “I'm bleeding?” he screeched.

Before he could start to rant about head injuries and precious brain cells, his mind registered their strange surroundings and he broke off with a choking sound. “What - where - what the - - It's a cube,” Rodney said, stating the obvious.

“Yep,” John agreed. “And there's more than likely an identical cube behind every one of these hatches.”

“What?” Rodney turned his head sharply - too sharply if the wince was anything to go by - to look at John. “How do you know that?”

“Because I woke up eight cubes that way,” John gestured at the hatch above their heads, “and every single one of them was surrounded by more.”

Rodney used the floor to push himself up, slightly unsteady on his feet. “These panels,” he said, “do they come loose?”

John stood up too, shaking his head. “Not that I've been able to tell. You think it’s Ancient?”

Rodney hummed noncommittally. “I'm not sure.” He moved around the room, running his hands over the translucent panels. “How did we get here?” he asked suddenly. “Last thing I remember is sitting down to breakfast in the mess hall. Pancakes. No maple syrup but they were still good.”

John’s worry over Rodney's head injury racked up three or four notches. “That was yesterday,” he said slowly. “We were on a mission today,” he prompted. “MXC-U83? You and Ronon went off to look at the writings while Teyla and I did the trade thing?”

Rodney shook his head slowly. “I don't - -“

“It's ok.” John could only take so much of Rodney's wide-eyed panic. “It's not important. You hit your head, a little blankness is expected. It'll be temporary.” He attempted a smile. “Remember that time Lorne woke up thinking he was back on the hippie commune he grew up on? A couple of hours of nudity later, he was fine.”

Rodney nodded but John could tell that he was still worried. Whatever he was planning to say next was interrupted by the sound of the hatch lever to their left spinning; about to open.

Gesturing for Rodney to move against the wall and to stay low and quiet, John flattened himself against the wall to the left of the opening hatch and waited. Dark hair emerged from the crawl space and John reached up to grab the shoulders of whoever it was, dragging them out of the space and pinning them to the ground.

At least, that was the plan.

Somehow, John found himself as the one flat on their back against the floor of the cube with strong thighs around his neck, pinning him down.

Damn, but it was good to see Teyla.

“You are lucky that I did not harm you,” Teyla cautioned him, moving to let him free.

“I let you win.” John smiled wryly as he rubbed his neck, letting Teyla pull him up by his other hand. Once he was standing, he brought his forehead briefly to Teyla’s own in the traditional Athosian greeting. The head touching thing had seemed uncomfortably intimate to him only a few short years ago but he did it easily now, drawing a sense of peace and strength from Teyla’s warm hand on his neck.

“Your arm,” Rodney spoke, drawing Teyla’s attention to him. “You're hurt.”

John followed his gaze and saw the rip in the jacket Teyla was wearing, the dark fabric looking even darker around the edges. Teyla was dressed the same as John and Rodney, right down to the flash of white boxers peeking out over the waistband of the cloth trousers.

“I am fine,” Teyla answered, waving him off. “It is not serious, nor does it hurt terribly. But I will admit that I am very glad to see you both.” Smiling, she walked over to Rodney and greeted him the same way she had John. She broke it off almost immediately though, frowning at Rodney’s head. “You are injured.” She looked at John and Rodney with concern. “Have you also come across a trap?”

“Trap?” John echoed. “What kind of trap?”

“These boxes,” Teyla said, gesturing at the room. “This place seems to be made up of many of them and not all of them are safe.”

“Define not safe.” Rodney’s voice was starting to take an edge of panic.

Teyla lifted her jacket sleeve to show a shallow gash along the skin of her upper arm. “Thin blades of metal hidden in the wall of the third room I entered,” she said. “They appeared just as my feet touched the floor. I was lucky enough to see a glint of light out of the corner of my eye and was able to avoid them but it was a very close thing. I fear that I would not have made it here to find you both otherwise.”

John suspected that it wasn't luck so much as Teyla’s own skill that had saved her.

“Well, things just got a hell of a lot more interesting,” he drawled. “I don't suppose you know what this place is? Or remember how we got here?

Teyla shook her head. “I have never seen anything like this place and the last thing I remember is taking a drink of the spiced tea that was offered by the head of the Omani tribe.”

“You think we were drugged?”

“It seems a logical conclusion to make,” Teyla agreed. “I do not know why though or how we came to be in this place.”

“Who cares how we got here?” Rodney interrupted, his voice high with fear. “The important thing is how we get _out_ of here.”

“Hey,” John put some command in his voice. Rodney only responded to it about six out of every ten times but he needed to try something to stop him panicking. “We _will_ get out of here. If all else fails, Atlantis will dial the gate and try to contact us when we miss check-in and then they'll send someone when we don't answer.”

“We don't even know how long we've been in here!” Rodney argued. “It could have been days already.”

“Not days,” John said. “It's been an hour, maybe two at most.”

“How do you know that?”

John rubbed a hand across his five o’clock shadow. “I shaved this morning. This feels like late afternoon to me and last I remember it was an hour or so after lunch. Now, we were due to either be back or check-in by sundown so a few more hours and the cavalry will be on their way. Meantime, we need to keep moving and see if we can find a way out of here.”

“Are you insane? Did you not hear what Teyla said? These rooms are booby-trapped. This one’s safe; we should stay here and wait for Atlantis to find us.”

There was no arguing with Rodney when he got stubborn like this and John was mentally weighing the pros and cons of just lifting him into a fireman’s carry and moving when Teyla placed a hand on Rodney’s arm, offering her support.

“John is right, Rodney. This room may appear safe but we cannot be sure if we are the only people in this place. To stay still is to be…I believe you call it sitting ducks?”

The ceiling hatch chose that exact moment to start spinning. Pushing Rodney behind him, John and Teyla got into position, ready to fight whoever or whatever - god, please don't be a _what_ ever, John thought desperately - came through.

Ronon’s dreadlocks, dangling down out the hatch as his head poked through, were distinctive enough that nobody ended up on their backs this time. He effortlessly eased himself down, landing with a heavy thud on the floor of their room, looking strange without his usual leather clothes. He’d been subjected to the same fashion make-over as the rest of them had.

“Found a way out yet?” Ronon asked, after slapping John and Rodney on the back and bending impossibly low to bring his forehead against Teyla’s.

“Not yet,” John said.

“We were just discussing whether it would be best to remain here or to keep searching,” Teyla said.

John could have guessed Ronon's answer; anyone could have. “Keep moving,” he said. “Always keep moving. Standing still’s when they get you.”

“And how do we avoid the traps?” Rodney asked, gesturing at Teyla’s arm. “I don't know about you but I don't want to end up chopped into tiny little pieces. I prefer all my pieces right where they are.”

Ronon frowned. It was obvious he hadn't come across any traps yet either. After hearing Teyla’s story he bent down and started to unlace his boots.

“And how is that going to help?”

Ronon ignored Rodney and moved to one of the hatches. Opening it, he tossed the boot through the crawl space, holding on to it by the joined laces as it landed with a thump in the next room.

“Clear.” With that, Ronon hauled himself up and moved safely through into the next room. His voice called through. “You guys coming or not?”

John looked at Rodney questioningly and he could pinpoint the exact second that Rodney gave in. John slapped him on the back, proud of him. It really was astonishing how often Rodney McKay - a man that most of the SGC had written off as selfish and cowardly - could make the hard decision, could force down his fear and get the job done.

Following Rodney through the hatch into the next room, John hoped that they never realised what they had given away. He certainly wasn't going to let them take it back.

* * *

Four moves later and Ronon’s boot was incinerated by flamethrowers built into the wall. Ronon pulled the blackened husk of a boot back through the hatch by its laces and the four of them watched it smoulder on the floor.

“Motion sensors in the wall,” Rodney muttered. “This is...how are they even powering this place?”

“You're seriously thinking about ZPMs now?”

“What?” Rodney glared witheringly at John. “You would rather that I dwell in the fact that it could have been my face and not Ronon’s boot just now? Thinking about ZPMs is comforting, ok? And I am really starting to freak out right about now so I could use a little comfort.”

John held his hands up in surrender, silently apologising. He could understand that; he was more than a bit freaked out himself.

The strange almost thunder-like sound that John had heard not long after he woke up sounded again in the distance. It wasn't exactly a comforting noise and John tried not to think about the place collapsing around them. This much metal, they wouldn't stand a chance.

“The ventilation system on Atlantis makes a similar sound,” Teyla said. “But I do not believe there are any vents in here.”

“Did the fact that it's a billion degrees in here give it away?” Rodney snapped.

John had been trying not to think about it but the temperature was rising rapidly in here, the material of their uniforms unforgiving in the heat, sticking to his skin in uncomfortable places.

Ronon ignored their conversation and focused on the problem at hand. “Gonna need another boot. This one’s done.”

“We’re seriously going to keep moving? After that?” Rodney gestured at the room that had just roasted Ronon's boot.

“We already knew there were traps,” John pointed out, “and the boot helped us avoid one so I say we're good to keep going.”

“But how do we even know we're even going in the right direction?” Rodney said. “There's gotta be a smarter way to - -“ he broke off, snapping his fingers. “The numbers. The numbers at every hatch. They have to mean something.”  
.  
“Such as?” Teyla prompted.

“What? I have to come up with all the answers?” Rodney gestured wildly at his head which had finally stopped bleeding but had left a gory streak of red down the back of his neck.

All four of them examined the numbers of the open hatch more closely, as if the secret to their meaning would reveal itself if they looked hard enough.

“A serial number?” Ronon guessed.

Rodney laughed without humour. “Well, great, there are only,” he read the number aloud, “566,472,737 rooms in this thing.”

“There aren't 566 million rooms in this thing,” John said, not at all sure that was the case but needing it to be true.

“You'd better hope there aren't,” Rodney continued, ‘because three days without food or water and we’ll be too weak to move. Do you know how unpleasant dehydration is?. Dizziness, headaches, exhaustion - -“ Rodney broke off with a yelp as Ronon grabbed him by the jacket and yanked.

Holding his hand out, John could see that he'd ripped a button off. A button which he then proceeded to put in his mouth.

“Suck on it,” he said. “Keeps the saliva flowing.”

Rodney looked flummoxed that he hadn’t thought of that himself and John had to bite his cheek to keep from laughing. Truth was, he hadn't thought of it either but that was why there were four people on a team. They each brought their own strengths. John had a feeling this wasn't the last time Ronon’s survival skills would come in handy before they got out of here.

Teyla had removed her boot while Rodney was complaining and she tossed it through the next hatch where it landed safe and whole.

“Until we can find the meaning of the numbers, I suggest we follow our original plan and keep moving.”

John and Ronon agreed, with Rodney grumbling reluctantly. Teyla and Ronon went first, making their way through the hatch.  Rodney was about to follow when John reached out and stopped him, his mind suddenly tripping over another concern.

“Your hypoglycaemia,” he said. “How long before…” John couldn't even finish the sentence.

Rodney didn't answer right away, looking at John carefully for a moment before evidently deciding that John wasn't yanking his chain and was legitimately concerned. His face softened, looking both touched and confused that John would care which was - - how could Rodney think he wouldn't care?

“I'll be fine,” he said. “My - ah - well, Carson and Keller have been pretty happy with my numbers since I started, y'know, running for my life every other week and, ah, it's not really the issue it once was.” Rodney looked embarrassed to admit it which John didn't fully understand but he was damn grateful to hear it.

“So, you're not gonna faint on me?” He couldn't resist the teasing and Rodney's long-suffering sigh was tinged with amusement so he counted it as a win.

“I don't _faint_ ,” Rodney replied haughtily, “I - -“

“Pass out manfully,” John grinned. “I remember.” He gestured at the hatch, indicating Rodney should go. “Beauty before brains.”

Rodney frowned. “In what possible scenario would you be the brains in that sentence?”

“The scenario in which you have a sucking head wound and can't remember anything from the last few days.”

The answer seemed to satisfy Rodney who hoisted himself through the hatch without another word.

John was just glad that Rodney was out of it enough not to realise that he’d been inadvertently flirting. He was usually so careful about locking that impulse down but something about this maze and the heat and the way Rodney's eyes looked so blue in the blue glare from the translucent panels - - John sighed heavily and followed the rest of his team through. God, he really hoped there weren't 566 million cubes in this thing.

* * *

They came across their first dead body a couple of moves later. At least, John thought it might have been a body once. Peering through the hatch into the next room, the floor was littered with chunks of meat that, if the remnants of clothes were to be believed - used to be a person.

“What could do such a thing?” Teyla asked, aghast.

In answer, John threw his boot through the hatch and they watched as a grid of razor-sharp metal cut through the air. John could all too easily see what had happened, how the impossibly sharp grid would have diced whoever was standing there until all that was left was…well, they could all see what was left. It was only the gnawing emptiness in his stomach that saved John from retching all over the floor but Rodney wasn't quite so lucky, the three of them politely averting their eyes as he heaved whatever meagre remains were left in his stomach into the far corner of the room. He used the sleeves of his jacket to wipe his mouth clean and tossed the jacket on to the mess on the floor.

“It’s too damn hot for this thing anyway,” Rodney muttered, averting his gaze, embarrassed.

They didn't stay in that room long.

Two moves later, the boot showed them a clear path but John held his hand out, blocking Ronon from entering.

“Boot says it's clear,” Ronon pointed out.

“I know, I just - something doesn't feel right. The air in there, it smells wrong. Stale, dry.”

“There are molecular chemical sensors,” Rodney said, “back on Earth. The boot wouldn't set something like that off; it's not living. They detect hydrogen dioxide that’s secreted by the skin.”

“You think that's what's in there?” Ronon asked.

John shrugged. “Could be. I don't really feel like finding out.”

Ronon threw his remaining boot against the wall, where it bounced and landed a few inches away from Teyla, his anger and frustration like a living, breathing presence in the room. “I really, really hate this place,” he said, slumping against the ground.

John knew this had to be hard on Ronon. Trapped, on the run...he probably could have handled it better if they had something to fight but instead they were stuck in this maze like rats. It was enough to get anyone down.

John was dimly aware of Teyla moving to sit beside Ronon, laying a comforting hand on his shoulder, but he wasn't paying attention, his mind too busy shouting at him about patterns. The numbers.

“Prime numbers,” he muttered, growing slowly more sure of his theory as he went over everything in his mind. He said it again, louder. “Prime numbers.”

Ronon glared at him. “That annoying game you two play that makes me feel dumb? Not in the mood, Sheppard.”

“No, I'm not - - the numbers.” He tapped at the numbers inside the hatch. “Look, see here? 349. That's a prime number. It means that there's a trap inside.”

Rodney interrupted him with a roll of the eyes. “I may be operating with a head injury but you can't make a statement like that based on just one room.”

“I'm not,” John stressed. “The room with the, ah, the chunks? 083. The flamethrower? 137. Three’s a pattern.”

“You remember all those numbers in your head?” Teyla asked.

John shrugged, trying not to look embarrassed. “I've always been good with numbers. I’m sure of this.”

A few years ago, before Atlantis, before he'd accidentally activated an Ancient chair in Antarctica, John wouldn't have been able to say the words “I'm sure of this” and have anyone back him up without question.

He did now.

Rodney shook his head, half smiling. “I can't believe that prime/not prime is going to save our lives,” he joked.

John grinned in answer and moved to the next hatch, opening it and looking at the numbers.

511 192 063

“Not prime,” he called out. “This room should be safe.”

Rodney clapped him on the shoulder as Teyla and Ronon started to stand. “Beauty before brains,” he said smugly and quickly climbed up and through the hatch into the next room.

John smiled, perplexed at the very un-Rodney like behaviour but his smile froze on his face and a cold terror overtook him as Rodney landed heavily then immediately clutched at his throat and started to gasp for breath.

He'd been wrong. Oh God, he'd been wrong and he had killed Rodney.

“McKay, get back here.” Ronon thumped on the metal of the hatch, trying to get Rodney's attention. John started to breathe again as he realised that Ronon was right. If it was gas, all Rodney had to do was get out of there and he would be fine. His voice joined Ronon and Teyla’s in urging Rodney to do just that.

Rodney wasn't listening to them. It was as if he couldn't even hear them, too busy clawing at his throat and making that awful hacking gasping noise that John knew he would be hearing every time he closed his eyes from now on.

No.

John made a decision. There was no way that he was going to just stand there and watch as his - - as _Rodney_ suffocated to death. Not when he could do something about it. Glancing over his shoulder at the others, John's eyes locked with Teyla’s. He could see some of his own pain and fear in them but what surprised him most was the understanding. John had thought his feelings were so well hidden, had prided himself on it, but one look in Teyla’s eyes and he knew that he hadn't been fooling her. Her face tight with worry, she nodded ever so slightly. John wasn't sure if it was acceptance, permission or approval but he took it as such anyway.

Shouldering Ronon out of the way, John drew in a deep breath and held it. Using the rungs, he climbed into the hatch and pushed through to the other room where he would grab Rodney, pull him back into safety and pray that it was only gas and not poison in the air.

His feet hit the floor of the cube at almost the exact same time that Rodney's knees did, collapsing forward onto his hands and knees as his skin started to take on a horrible blue tinge.

Heart racing, lungs burning, John reached out to lift Rodney up and force him out the room when Rodney waved him off, pushing him away. With one last gasping hack a small dark button was expelled from Rodney's mouth where it landed on the floor of the cube, wet with spit.

Rodney collapsed back onto his heels and drew in a deep breath that sounded almost as painful as the hacking gasps that he'd just stopped making.

“Sorry,” he wheezed. There were tears in his eyes from the massive effort to breathe when he looked up at John. “It's safe. I - I inhaled my button.”

Ronon's booming laugh sounded from the next cube over, joined by Teyla’s relieved one. John could hear them moving, picking up the remaining boots and starting to climb through the hatch to join them. He heard it but he couldn't take his eyes off of Rodney.

“Sorry,” Rodney said again, more quietly this time. This apology was just for John and he wondered if Rodney even knew what he was apologising for. For scaring the hell out of him, for making him think his worst nightmare was coming true, for almost leaving him behind, for doing all of that before John got a chance to say - -

John pulled Rodney forward into a crushing hug and held him tightly, fiercely.

“Don't ever do that again,” he whispered against the flushed skin of Rodney's neck. “Never again.”

John had never hugged Rodney before. Not like this. A manly slap on the back after a close call was a million miles away from the way he held Rodney now, clinging to him like he was a lifeline. John expected Rodney to push him off, to twist away, to ask who the hell he was and what he had done with John Sheppard but - - Rodney held him just as tightly, clung just as fiercely and John felt something inside himself break open, spilling feelings everywhere. No matter what happened now, even if they got out of this damn thing in one piece, he knew that nothing would ever be the same again.

The thought terrified him. The thought exhilarated him.

Maybe, just maybe, it would be better.

They had to break apart eventually. Reluctantly.

Neither Teyla or Ronon said anything about the display which John appreciated. Of course, neither of them looked at all surprised either but John found that he was surprisingly ok with that.

Clearing his throat, he nodded his head at the next hatch. “Up for a few hundred rounds of prime/not prime?” he asked.

Rodney smiled, his eyes flashing. “Let's get the hell out of here,” he said.

* * *

The heat was becoming more and more unbearable with every passing hour. Without a way to tell the time - other than the growth of his facial hair - John was hard pressed to say exactly how many hours they had been stuck in this damn place but it had to have been at least half a day now.

A dozen hours, scores of rooms and they were no closer to finding a way out. They'd never been forced to backtrack, there had always been at least one exit from each room that was free from traps but that just made it worse. John was starting to worry that there really might be 566 million rooms in this thing; it seemed never-ending.

On one memorable occasion the only untrapped room - besides the one they'd just came from - had been the one accessed by the ceiling hatch. John had expected Rodney to complain, make a fuss, stomp his feet but he had just sighed and got on with it, monkey swinging his way across the ceiling carefully. It was that more than anything else that made John realise how much trouble they were in. A quiet, complacent Rodney was John's litmus test for just how badly things had hit the fan.

A dozen hours, scores of rooms, and no contact from Atlantis.

John knew the others were thinking about that too but none of them had spoken it out loud yet. They would have missed their check-in hours ago. Atlantis would have dialled in and - - they had no idea if they were even on the same planet anymore, not really. With each passing minute, the combination of the heat, hunger and dehydration was leaching away more of their strength and with each passing room it was looking more and more likely that they would have to find their own way out of here.

“Clear,” John said as he examined yet another series of numbers. Rodney had tried to help out with the numbers at first but John had caught him in a wrong answer twice. That and the fact that Rodney was starting to slur one word out of every ten…John really wanted to get him back to Atlantis and under a scanner. It was another thing he was trying not to think about.

John moved to the side as Ronon pushed past him. It was his turn to go first. They’d cleared almost twenty rooms before John even realised they'd fallen into that pattern, each of them taking a turn to be the first through the hatch. It wasn't something they'd consciously decided on, just a byproduct of working as a team for so long.

John wondered if it gave them an edge over the other poor bastards who'd found themselves in this thing. They'd found more remains since that first set. All of them had been relatively fresh, not having had time to rot. John figured that either this place had only recently begun being used for whatever the hell it was being used for or that there was some sort of clean up crew that came through it periodically. It also made him wonder just how many people were in here with them and whether they'd come across any.

Ronon's feet landed softly - both boots long gone - on the floor of the room and John was halfway to following him when Teyla’s voice sang out, loud and urgent.

“Stop! In front of you.”

John followed her gaze and saw what had alarmed her. Wires. Coming down from the ceiling, slowly surrounding Ronon. John had no doubt that they were as sharp as the metal grid they had seen in the other room. The wires started to rotate, about to spring their trap, but Ronon was faster. Even dehydrated and hungry his reflexes were still superhuman and that was the only thing that kept him from being split into several pieces. They weren’t enough to get him out completely unscathed though. John winced as one of the wires shaved a six-inch gash into Ronon's calf muscle.

John and Teyla pulled him back through the hatch and Teyla immediately bent over Ronon's leg, examining the damage.

“I don't know what happened,” John swore. “It wasn't prime.”

“It is not bad,” Teyla said, peering closely at Ronon’s leg. “You were lucky.”

“I swear it wasn't prime,” John said again.

“Not your fault, Sheppard,” Ronon growled, ripping a strip off his trousers to wrap the wound.

“The numbers must be more complicated than we thought,” Rodney chipped in, slurring over the word complicated. John and Teyla exchanged a worried glance but Rodney didn't react. John wasn't sure he even knew that he was slurring.

“Maybe they don't mean anything at all,” Ronon argued.

“No,” John pushed his worry over Rodney away and focused on the task of getting them out of here. “It means they’re more involved. They've worked for us up to now, that can't just be coincidence. I just, I need more time with them.”

John had no idea if time would make any difference at all. What he really needed was Rodney at full speed but saying so wouldn't be helpful.

“We need to rest anyway,” Teyla said. “Here is as good a place as we will find.”

Ronon looked like he was going to argue, to say that they needed to keep moving, pressing forward, but with a darting look at Rodney, he kept his mouth shut, nodding in agreement instead. Bunching up his jacket as a pillow, Ronon lay down on the floor and immediately fell asleep - a skill that he had picked up while he was Running.

John, like a lot of soldiers, had developed that skill too but he wasn't ready to sleep yet. Not before he figured out what these numbers meant.

Before long, John heard the deep, even breaths of Teyla and the quiet snuffling snores from Rodney that meant they'd joined Ronon in sleep.

Good, he thought, they need it. John spent a long moment just looking at them. All three looked so much younger when they slept - as cliched as it sounded. He would get them out of here, he told himself. He would. He just had to make sense of these numbers.

* * *

“They telling you anything yet?”

Ronon had slept for maybe half an hour before waking. He'd lasted approximately three minutes before starting to hound John about his progress. John didn't blame him, not really. Ronon didn't do well with waiting. None of them did. It was usually him hounding Rodney to come up with an answer on these missions. He was discovering that it really wasn't much fun from Rodney's side of things. Because the numbers? They weren't telling him anything.

Whatever expression he made at Ronon's question must have been answer enough. Ronon grunted a sound of apology. “You think we should be letting McKay sleep?” he asked. “His head’s pretty messed up.”

John hadn't even thought of that. What the hell kind of leader - what the hell kind of friend did that make him? His expression must have given him away again because Ronon didn't wait for an answer, he went straight over to where Rodney was curled in on himself and shook him gently; more gently than most people would think him capable of.

“Library.” Rodney woke with a gasp.

“You dream about libraries?” Ronon asked, deadpan. “No wonder you're so uptight.”

“Not a dream,” Rodney said half-asleep. “At least I don't think it was. On the planet. Before here. Were we looking at records?”

“Yeah,” John stood up, moving his attention away from the numbers. “You and Ronon were. Are you remembering something?”

“Maybe.” Rodney was squinting against the light, his face pained as if the light were hurting him.

“Rodney,” Teyla was awake now too. “What did you find in these records?”

“There were…” Rodney trailed off, trying to remember. John could see the exact moment that the memory solidified; watched as Rodney's entire face lit up like it always did when the pieces slotted together. “A cube.” He looked frantically between all three of them. “In the library, on MXC-U83, there were blueprints for a large structure. A cube. This cube. I think we're in it.”

“You saw the plans for this place?” Ronon asked. “What is it?”

“What is it?” Rodney repeated, his volume increasing along with his temper. “It's an accident. A forgotten, perpetual public works project. Like everything else the Ancients did.” He started to list things off using his fingers. “Machines that cause exploding tumours, machines that force you to Ascend or die, giant fucking cubes filled with death traps that they leave lying about on random planets - -“

“Rodney! Rodney!” John interrupted, worried by how purple Rodney's face was getting and suddenly hit with an idea. “The plans. Do you remember the dimensions?”

“434 feet square.”

“Ok.” John nodded excitedly and started to pace the width of the cube. Rodney and the others caught on to what he was doing quickly and moved out of his way. “14 x 14 x 14,” he said.

“The, ah, the inner cube. I didn't see much of the designs for it but it couldn't sit flush against the outer shell. There had to be a space.”

“One cube worth of space?”

Rodney shrugged. “I don't know. It makes sense.”

“Ok. We’ll go with that.” John did some quick mental arithmetic. God, his head was starting to hurt. “That means the biggest the cube can possibly be is 26 rooms high, 26 rooms across so..17,576 rooms.”

“Might as well be 566 million,” Rodney muttered. From the pained looks on Ronon and Teyla’s faces, John knew they agreed.

“No,” John said. “This is good, this is - “ he went back to the open hatch and examined the numbers anew.

517 478 565

“Descartes,” he said excitedly. “Of course. Rodney, how do you plot points on a three-dimensional graph?”

“Coordinates,” Rodney broke out into a grin. “Cartesian coordinates. John, you're a genius.”

“What have you found, John?” Teyla asked patiently. “Explain it to us.”

“These numbers,” John tapped them with his fingers. “Think of them like markers, a grid reference, like latitude and longitude on a map. The numbers tell us where we are inside the cube.”

“Well, where are we?” Ronon grunted.

John bent over the numbers again. “Hold on, I have to - - ok, X coordinate is 19, Y is 26 so,” he looked up and grinned, “we’re seven rooms from the edge.”

Ronon lifted John off his feet briefly as he whooped in excitement. “All right. Let's go.”

“What happens when we get to the edge?” Teyla asked.

“Maybe we can get the door open,” John guessed.

“If there even is a door.”

“There's a door, Rodney.”

“What about the traps?” Rodney stuck his chin out stubbornly.

“We cut the risks with the boots and the prime number thing,” Ronon answered, taking the words out of John's mouth. “We’ve got this far, McKay. Let's finish this. We could be back on Atlantis in time for dinner.”

For one horrible moment John thought Rodney was going to refuse; to tell them that he was staying where he was; that they'd have to leave him behind if they wanted to continue on but Rodney always did have this way of surprising him. Maybe, when they got out of here, John would finally set about telling him just how much.

* * *

Now that they had a workable plan, they were moving faster than ever. The lines of exhaustion were clear on each of their faces but they worked with a renewed determination to get to the edge and find their way out of here. John knew it was that determination that was the only thing that was keeping them going.

It was for that reason that he pushed the niggling doubt away.

14, 27, 14.

John could still recall the numbers from almost every room they had visited and there was one in particular, a nondescript red room they had come across about five rooms before Rodney's revelation. Converting the numbers of that room into their Cartesian coordinates placed it at 14,27,14. If they were right, if the cube really was 26 rooms across, that should have placed that room outside of the cube.

He's pretty sure he would have noticed if that were the case.

Maybe he was wrong. Maybe he was misremembering the numbers. Either way, he couldn't take that hope away. Not now. They were only one room from the edge now, they'd find out if their theory was right soon enough.

Or maybe not.

“You've got to be kidding me,” Rodney swore.

The four of them knelt over the floor hatch, the last one they'd tried in this room, and watched as scores of spears slid back into the translucent walls.

“Sound activated,” Ronon said, causing the spears to fill the room again.

“So that’s it,” Rodney sighed. “The edge is surrounded by traps?” He fell back, sprawling out on the floor of the cube. “We’re gonna die in here.”

“We’re not gonna die in here,” John snapped. “We can backtrack. We can try somewhere else.”

Rodney laughed, although it sounded more like a sob in the quiet of the cube. “And how long will that take? You think I have that long? You don't think I can hear my speech getting worse? You don't think I can feel that something's wrong in here?” Rodney tapped his head.

“Rodney - -“ John broke off, not sure what to say. God, he hated feeling this hopeless.

There was silence in the room for almost a minute. A heavy smothering silence that hurt John's chest.

Ronon broke it.

“I say we cross it,” he said, jerking his head to indicate the room below. “We know how it works, we just have to be quiet.”

“That's pretty fucking quiet,” Rodney scoffed.

“Glad you're on board,” Ronon grinned. “It's your turn to go first.”

* * *

John had never understood the expression ‘his heart was in his mouth’ until he had to watch Rodney make his way, absolutely silently, into the next cube. He got it now, he really did. Jesus, he wished that he didn't.

Rodney's powerful upper arms shook noticeably as he hung from the ceiling, their last boot in his mouth. It took him what seemed like forever to make his way to the wall and John wanted to let out a sigh of relief when he finally made it but that would have been a very bad idea. He watched intently as Rodney climbed down the wall and opened the hatch that should lead them to the edge.

The sound of the hatch opening seemed incredibly loud but they'd already figured out the room must have been set up to ignore that noise. It wouldn't be much of a trap if they were forewarned, would it? The strange rumbling noise that they'd been hearing every so often started up just as Rodney got the hatch open and John's stomach tensed. Teyla's grip on his arm tightened and he knew she was worried too but there was no reaction from the trap. Closing his eyes in relief, John missed watching Rodney throw their last boot through the hatch to check for traps but he was crawling through to the next room when John’s eyes opened so it must have been clear.

Ronon went next, closely followed by Teyla. Both of them made it look easy. When they were safely in the next room, John gently lowered himself down. Funnily enough, he was less tense doing it himself than he had been watching the others do it.

Ten seconds later, he was throwing himself through the hatch into the other room and cringing as the spears activated at the sound of their relief.

If he never had to do that again, it would be too soon.

“So,” John cleared his throat, “anyone else curious what's behind that door?”

* * *

“Clear blue skies, clear blue skies.”

Rodney kept up a running mantra as John carefully turned the lever to open the door.

“I hope for sunshine,” Teyla smiled serenely. “Sunshine and fresh air.”

The door swung open to darkness.

“It's the shell,” Rodney said, pushing past John to peer out in the darkness. “Hello? Can anybody hear me?” he called out. The echoing of his voice was the only answer he got and he turned back, disappointment obvious in the set of his shoulders.

John hung back while Teyla and Ronon squeezed into the hatch to have a look.

“How's your head?” John asked quietly.

“Throbbing,” Rodney replied. “Probably haemorrhaging as we speak.” He sighed heavily, rubbing his hand across his eyes. “I really thought we'd find something, y’know. A Hail Mary? We always have before.”

“It's too dark,” Ronon said, saving John from figuring out what the hell he could possibly say to Rodney except for ‘I'm sorry that I failed you.’ “Can't see anything.”

“Perhaps if we fashioned a rope out of these clothes I could swing over there,” Teyla said. “There may be something that we cannot see from here.”

“Oh, yes, brilliant idea!” Rodney spat. “Except for the part where these clothes could have been made of toilet paper for all the structural integrity they have or the part where all three of us are operating on zero energy and are just as likely to drop you than anything else.”

“He's got a point,” John admitted. “It's too dangerous.”

“What do you suggest we do then?” Teyla asked, as close to losing her composure as John had ever heard her.

“We get down to the bottom,” Ronon said. “It'll be easier to get to the shell from there.”

“That's a long way.” John frowned. “We've only got the one boot.” Even as he argued against it, John knew it was the only way. He sighed, rubbing his days worth of facial hair with his palm. “You're right. It makes sense. We’ll go down.”

“We rest first.” Rodney interrupted. “You didn't get any sleep earlier and you've been pushing yourself, your brain, this whole time. Take an hour.”

“Rodney - -“

“I'm not gonna die in the next hour, John. Take it.”

John nodded, not trusting his voice at that moment in case it did something stupid like break on him.

An hour. He could take an hour.

He was asleep as soon as his head hit the floor.

* * *

Things were supposed to look better after a rest. When John woke up, exactly an hour later thanks to the internal time clock the military had drilled into him, they looked a thousand times worse. Rodney looked a thousand times worse.

His skin was pale as paper and sheened with sweat, his eyes dull, the normally vibrant blue seeming dead and cold.

Ronon and Teyla didn't look much better, the makeshift bandages around Teyla’s arm and Ronon’s leg were a stark reminder that they'd been injured too. Their lips were cracked and painful looking from the lack of water and John knew his were the same.

They really needed to get out of here.

Hoping the path of least resistance would be trap free, they opened the door built into the floor. He knew the chances of them being lucky enough to get a straight run down were slim to the point of non-existent but he could at least hope for an easy start.

Rodney was closest to the hatch so he was the one who leant down to read out the numbers. In hindsight, that was a stupid idea. One second Rodney was poking his head into the hatch to see the numbers and the next….

Holding his head upside down like that must have caused a rush of blood to his head - his already injured head - and caused him to lose his balance.

He fell. Overbalanced and crashed his way down into the room below.

“McKay!” Ronon tried to grab him, to stop him, but he was too slow, too tired, too - - oh, god, John heaved, Rodney.

John, Ronon and Teyla looked down the hatch to where Rodney was lying on the floor, his limbs sprawled haplessly around him. The room hadn't sprung a trap which was a small mercy and they quickly made their way down, John going first. He frowned as Rodney started to laugh - manic and hysterical and broken.

“Hey, buddy,” he said quietly, kneeling beside Rodney and checking for broken bones, wincing as he found at least one cracked rib. “Want to tell me what's so funny?”

“Circles,” Rodney managed to gasp out between peals of laughter. “We've been going around in circles.” His hands swept out and gestured to the corner. John turned to look at what Rodney was indicating and - - he collapsed back on his heels and exhaled a deep breath.

There, in the corner, was a pool of vomit half covered by a shirt. Rodney's shirt.

John suddenly felt like breaking himself. They really had been going around in circles.

Teyla knelt done next to Rodney and bowed her head. “Torren, I am sorry,” she whispered quietly.

John closed his eyes, feeling like an asshole. In all this, he'd never once thought about Torren. Or Kanaan. Or Amelia. Or anyone but his team really.

Rodney had stopped laughing at Teyla’s words and sat up, holding his ribs. He reached out for Teyla and touched her shoulder gently. A stifled sob sounded at his touch and John watched as Teyla leaned into him. Taking comfort from a dying man; it should have been funny. Except the clock was ticking for all of them now wasn't it? They were going to die in this place.

“HEY!” Ronon yelled out, banging on the metal of the hatch. From the expression on his face, he had been trying to get their attention for a while. He gestured through the open door to the blackness “Why isn't there anything here?”

“It's the edge,” Rodney said, dismissing him.

Ronon slapped the metal again. “We weren't at the edge before,” he said. “Where's the room with the chunks of meat? Listen to what I'm saying. There was a room there before. We haven't been moving in circles, the rooms have.”

John knelt up and pushed himself unsteadily to his feet. “Of course,” he muttered. It all made sense now.

“The thunder,” Ronon said, “the shaking. It was the rooms moving.”

“The numbers,” John cursed. “Of course.”

“What are you on to Sheppard?”

John started to pace. “The numbers. They were markers on a map, right?”

“Right.”

“And how do you map a point that keeps moving?”

Rodney joined the conversation, clicking his fingers together with excitement. “Permutations.”

“Exactly,” John said. “A list of all the coordinates the room moves through. All this time, I've been looking at one point on the map, probably it's starting position.”

“How does this help us get out?” Teyla asked. All traces of her earlier tears were gone, she looked as serene as usual. John couldn't help but be proud of her for that.

“27,” John grinned. “I know where the exit is.”

* * *

To say the others were pissed that he hadn't told them about the 27 coordinate was understating it but John could apologise for that later; when they were out of here.

“A bridge,” Rodney said, once he'd calmed down. “Between the cube and the outer shell.”

“But only in its original position?” Teyla asked.

“Like a giant combination lock,” Ronon said, getting it. “In the starting position, the lock is open but then once the rooms begin to move the lock closes. A place this size, it could take days to cycle through.”

“Can we tell when it opens?” Teyla asked Rodney.

“John can do the math,” Rodney said, no sound of doubt in his voice at all. “He's got us this far, he can get us home.”

John swallowed a pesky emotion at Rodney’s show of trust and bent over the numbers again. “We find it's original coordinates by adding the numbers, the permutations are found by subtracting the numbers. That's it…this room moves to 0, 1 and -1 on the x-axis, 2, 5 and -7 on y and 1, -1 and 0 on z.”

“That’s not an answer,” Ronon grumbled.

“Give me the room numbers around us a reference,” John said.

They did, opening the hatches and calling out the numbers. John waved at them to stop when he had enough. “X is 17, Y is 25 and Z is 14 which means this room makes two more moves before returning to its starting position.”

“Is that enough time?” Teyla asked.

“It'll have to be,” John said.

“What about the traps?”

Rodney grimaced. “They're not identified by prime numbers,” he said. “They're identified by a number that's the power of a prime. The numbers are huge. I would struggle to calculate that if I were at 100%. With my head like this…, I'd need a computer.”

John spoke up. “I can do it.”

“You can do what?”

“I can work out the factors,” he said. “What? I told you I had a facility for numbers. It's a bar trick, it’s - -“

“It's going to save us,” Rodney interrupted. “It's amazing. You're amazing.”

John flushed to the tips of his ears. “Right,” he cleared his throat, pointedly ignoring Ronon and Teyla’s smirks. “Who wants to get out of here?”

* * *

“656?,” Ronon read out the numbers.

“2,” John answered.

“779?”

“2.”

“462?”

“3. It's clear.” John sighed, relieved. There had been far too many detours on the way back to the bridge. They'd already heard the telltale shudders of one move which meant they only had one more move left until the combination lock opened. This next room was almost it though. Going by the numbers, its next move would take it to the bridge.

Ronon and Teyla quickly crawled through to the next room but Rodney hadn't made a move yet, too busy staring at John.

“What?” John asked. “Do I have something on my face?”

Rodney flushed, shaking his head. “No, I just - ah, watching you do math is kinda, I mean, you're insanely hot, you know that right?”

“That's something we can definitely talk about when we get outta here,” John smirked. “Come on, buddy, we’re so close.”

Rodney nodded, a half smile on his face. “Yeah, yeah, I'm right behind you. It's a nice view.”

Laughing, John climbed up the wall and crawled through the space, making sure to put an extra wiggle in his as for Rodney’s amusement.

Landing in the next cube he grinned through the opening at Rodney, who grinned back.

Just when everything was starting to go right, it all fell apart. With a shuddering clang, the room that Rodney was standing in started to slide down, moving out of position.

“Rodney!” John's shout sounded in stereo, as Teyla and Ronon joined.

The last thing John saw before the room disappeared completely was Rodney's small smile, filled with resignation.

“Godfuckingdamnit,” John yelled, smashing his fist against the wall.

“Be quiet,” Teyla shouted. John glared at her. How dare she tell him to be quiet? Rodney was gone. They were so fucking close to getting out of this thing and then Rodney just - - but then he heard it.

Laughter. The same hysterical laughter from earlier. Rodney's laughter.

“He's not moved far,” John breathed, already heading for the hatch. “I can find him.” He looked at Teyla and Ronon, daring them to try and stop him but they stepped aside without hesitation.

“Go,” Ronon said.

“Hurry,” Teyla added.

John nodded at them, hoping that his face at least was conveying the gratitude that he couldn't voice.

“If we don't make it back,” John said thickly, “get out of this place. Don't hesitate. You can come back for us later, it's not like we'd be going anywhere.”

“It will not come to that,” Teyla assured him. “You will bring Rodney back to us and we will all leave here together. Go!”

John climbed into the next cube, pausing to listen, following the sound of Rodney’s wheezing laughter. Climbing into the next cube, the laughter sounded even closer. It sounded as if it was coming from - -

John fell to his knees and hurried to open the floor hatch, poking his head into the room below.

“Hey, Rodney,” he called out, mock casually. “Miss me?”

“John?” Rodney had stopped laughing and was staring up at John with wonder. “How did you - - “

“Never leave a man behind, remember? Now, I need you to climb up here, ok? Teyla and Ronon are waiting for us and you know what they’re like. Think of the trouble they'll get into without us.”

Rodney clambered slowly to his feet and looked up at the ceiling with trepidation.

“You can do this,” John said. “You've come this far, you can't quit now.”

Rodney climbed. His arms shook the entire time but he did it anyway and thirty seconds later, John was pulling him up into the room above and wrapping his arms around him in a warm embrace.

“You stink,” Rodney muttered, burrowing closer.

“You too,” John grinned.

“John! Rodney! Quickly!”

They broke apart reluctantly at Teyla’s shout and climbed back the way John had come. They made it just in time, Rodney’s feet just touching the floor of the hatch Teyla and Ronon were waiting in when the entire room moved, dropping quickly like a broken elevator shaft.

The room seemed to move for an eternity but it finally stopped and John picked himself up off the floor, helping Rodney up while Teyla and Ronon righted themselves.

“Who wants to do the honours?” John asked.

Ronon stepped up and breathed deeply, opening the hatch.

There was nothing there.

“No,” Teyla cried softly.

“Wait,” Rodney squeezed her shoulder. “Give it a minute. It'll be there.”

Sure enough, a few seconds later the room started to shake again. It felt a little like standing too close to a moving train, filling them with the sensation of motion even when they were standing still.

“You open it this time,” Ronon said to Teyla, stepping aside.

Teyla reached up and carefully opened the hatch again to reveal a red room where there was previously nothing.

They'd found the bridge.

* * *

John had spent so long focusing on getting them here that he hadn't really had time to give any consideration as to what they would find when they did. They didn't even know if they were still on MXC-U83. The people there weren't soldiers but they'd managed to take them out before and John didn't think the four of them would be much of a challenge now either.

Unarmed, all four stripped down to t-shirt and boxers, their trousers and jackets discarded hours ago, exhausted and dehydrated. If there was a fight on the other side of that door, they weren't going to be winning it.

Of course, there was also the possibility that they weren't on the planet anymore. They could be anywhere. Hell, they could be floating in space. They could exit this room to find themselves taking a space walk without a suit.

For all those reasons and more, John’s hand hesitated on the lever that would take them out of this place.

“It has to be better than here,” Teyla said quietly. “Whatever is behind that door, it has to be better. I have faith that it will be better.”

John nodded, swallowing hard, but still made no move to open it.

“Staying in here’s the same as giving up,” Ronon said. “I'm not ready to do that. Neither are you.”

John half laughed at that before turning to look at Rodney. “What about you? Anything to say?”

Rodney looked worse than any of them, holding his ribs painfully and covered in flakes of dried blood from his head wound, his skin far too pale to be healthy. John thought he looked beautiful.

“I was promised a conversation when we got out of here,” Rodney said slowly. “There are things I want to say. Open it, John.”

John took a deep breath and opened the door.

* * *

The beep of Rodney's heart monitor was steady and reassuring. It had been two days since they'd exited the cube to find Lorne, Zelenka and a dozen marines waiting in the control room that controlled the gigantic cube prison they'd just escaped.

They had spent twenty-six hours and forty-two minutes inside the cube and Atlantis had been trying to get them out for thirteen hours of that. Apparently, it was impossible to access the cube while the rooms were in motion and the rescue party was just gearing up to enter when John, Rodney, Teyla and Ronon staggered out. The cube had been left on MXC-U83 by the Ancients millennia ago; for what purpose was anyone's guess. The people there sure as hell didn't know but that hadn't stopped them putting people in it.

It was a test from the Gods, they had told Lorne. If the visitors truly meant them no harm, the cube would let them leave. If they harboured ill intent then the cube would take them.

The really galling thing was that the people there saw their survival as a good omen and were willing to do trade with them now. Woolsey had locked the address out of their gate with zero hesitation, no matter how much grain they were offering.

Rodney had collapsed on the way back to Atlantis.

Subacute subdural hematoma.

Rodney's brain had been bleeding for twenty-six hours and forty-two minutes. Locking MXC-U83 out of the gate system was probably for the best. If Woolsey hadn't done that, John wasn't sure what he would have done to them.

Keller had operated and the prognosis was cautiously optimistic but, as with all head injuries, the potential for long-term problems couldn't be ignored. The slurred speech, the slower processing time, that could all be permanent and John really wished there was something he could do, something he could shoot, but all he could do was sit here and wait for Rodney to wake up.

Teyla and Ronon were there a lot too but Teyla had Kanaan and Torren; Ronon had Amelia. John may not ‘have’ Rodney - not yet, at least - but there was nowhere else he'd rather be.

“M’not dead.”

John sat up straight at Rodney's words; his first words in two days. Pushing the button to call for Keller, John barely had time for a watery “Hey, buddy” before the medical team swooped in and started running a battery of tests.

John didn't see him awake again for six hours.

“We were gonna have a conversation,” Rodney said with minimal slurring. He hadn't got the all clear yet but he'd apparently kicked Zelenka’s ass at a quick round of prime/not prime so John was hopeful.

“You wanna start?” John asked. “Invalid’s privilege.”

Rodney huffed a laugh. “Ok, I'll start. We've been dancing around this for a while, you and I. Years, probably. But if this whole thing has taught me anything, it's that it's time to stop dancing. It's time to man up and do it.” He drew a shaky breath and let it out, looking John directly in the eyes. “John, it's time for you to join the MENSA chapter here.”

John barked out a surprised laugh, causing Rodney's eyes to twinkle with amusement. They weren’t quite as vibrantly blue as they used to be but they were a million times brighter than the dull, glazed grey that they'd been in the cube.

“Is that all?” John asked when he'd caught his breath.

“Well, that and you can take me to dinner. On a date. What do you say?”

John shook his head, grinning widely. “I say that there is no way in hell that I am joining your little club.”

Rodney opened his mouth to protest.

“But - “ John continued before he could interrupt, “I’d love to take you out. That ok?”

Rodney harrumphed but John could tell he wasn't mad. Not with the smile that was threatening to split his face in half.

“That’ll do for now,” Rodney said. “But I'm not giving up.”

John reached out and took Rodney's hand, squeezing it gently.

“You never do.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to mayastormborn for the beta. I played around with it a little after they were done with it so any remaining mistakes are a result of my own inability to leave things alone.


End file.
